We were talking about his fight against Renan Barao at the UFC on FUEL TV 7 event this weekend, and I asked him what he thought this fight was really for. No offense to Barao here, but an interim UFC bantamweight title isn’t exactly the real thing, and we all know it. The real thing is at home with Dominick Cruz, waiting for his knee to feel better. The interim belt is kind of like a token, something you can exchange for a shot at the real thing at a later date.

So what are they fighting over? The right to be called interim champion, whatever that means? The right to fight Cruz? A big pile of money? What?

“It’s hard for me to say,” McDonald told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I’ll say that, for me, the fight is for my job, same as any other fight. It’s how I make my living and how I can hopefully provide a future for my family. I don’t care about a title. I don’t care who it is or where it is, none of that. That doesn’t concern me. All that concerns me is fighting and making money.”

It’s kind of a weird thing to say right before a UFC title fight, interim or otherwise. Doing these pre-fight phoners, you come to expect certain stock answers, occasionally repackaged in semi-interesting ways. One thing you take for granted is that every fighter you talk to wants to become (or remain) the champion. That’s the goal, right?

“That is not the goal for me,” McDonald said. “I don’t care about it whatsoever.”

Honestly? It’s a little hard to believe. Once the 22-year-old pro fighter who will soon compete for a big hunk of UFC-branded leather and metal tells us that he doesn’t care about being champion, that’s when we have a choice to make. We have to decide whether he’s lying (to us or himself), or whether he just happens to be very different from most of the other men in his profession.

Because most pro fighters? Yeah, they want that belt. They want it because they make more money with it than without it, but also because they want to have something to point to as proof that they’re the best. The belt is where all that stuff – ego, financial concerns, the never-ending quest for trophies – intersects.

How can you not want it?

And, in fairness, McDonald didn’t say that he is against the idea of being the UFC bantamweight champ. It would, he said, be “a nice accolade to have on the resume.”

“But when it comes to my personal goals and what I want, I don’t care about it,” he quickly added. “I think when people want that on a personal level, they fuse this job with their identity, and that’s a dangerous road toward being corrupted by the system and letting their pride be the source of their fall.”

It’s probably important to mention here, just in case you didn’t know, that McDonald is a devout Christian. The way McDonald sees it, fighting is his job, but he seems to make a conscious effort not to allow it to become who he is.

At the same time, he also believes, somewhat paradoxically, that God made him into the rare species of person who is capable – physically and otherwise – of doing this job at this level. I’m not trying to diminish the work he’s done in the gym, but let’s be honest and admit that if you’re 15-1 as a pro and 4-0 in the UFC, there’s at least some element of natural athletic prowess involved. In other words, McDonald is gifted in one way or another. Whether you think it’s a gift bestowed by an omnipotent being – a “blessing,” you might even say – or whether you think it’s just luck in the genetic lottery, the result is the same. A 21-year-old capable of smashing Miguel Torres in the first round is not a normal 21-year-old. On that, I think we can all agree.

But then, if God was responsible for making him a fighter, how can fighting be nothing more than a job? If you believe that God made you something, and did it for a reason, how can that not be part of your identity? This is what prompted the following exchange, after I asked if he didn’t believe that God had made him uniquely suited to being a professional fighter:

McDonald: No. Not at all. I could do anything. I could be a UFC fighter. I could be a pastor. I could be a business administrator somewhere. I can do anything I want. This is just my job, it’s not me. God made me a warrior, but he didn’t make me a fighter in the UFC. I know who I am in Christ, and it has nothing to do with a belt.

Me: Do you think that God wants you to be a professional fighter?

McDonald: I really believe that God wanted me to do this work so I could shine a light where very few of them are. I never wanted to be here when I was growing up. It’s something I was almost forced into, and I fell in love with it in the process. By the time I got old enough to realize what I was doing, it was kind of like wow, this is what I’m good at, and this is what God has placed in front of me, so this is what I’m going to do.

Me: So did you choose this, or do you think it was chosen for you in some way? If you’re in this sport for a reason, was your place in it and your success predetermined?

McDonald: My philosophy on it can be summed up by the scripture that says man determines the path, but God determines his steps. What I did – and I know that I did do this – is I asked God for a hard life. I said, I want to do something special with my life. I asked Him for that very young. I said I don’t want to do something normal. I want to do something special, something that will influence people and something with my life where I could say I had done something with it. I made that choice as a child, and because I made that choice, I believe God put me into this field.

So there you have it. It’s a matter of choice. Kind of. At least, McDonald’s effort to keep “pro fighter” from taking over his identity, that’s a choice, and one he seems to be making consciously, and with a purpose.

I just wonder to what extent it’s really possible, especially if he beats Barao on Saturday at London’s Wembley Arena and becomes the interim champ (again, whatever that means), and especially if he goes on to dethrone Cruz as the real bantamweight king. At that point, how do you not get swept up in your own hype? If everybody else thinks of you as that UFC champion guy, how does that outside perception not bleed into your own concept of yourself?

For what it’s worth, McDonald seems to have thought these questions through before now. He also seems to have an almost shockingly healthy attitude about all of it, especially for a 22-year-old. If a fighter really could maintain the edge he needs to keep getting in the cage and taking on the best in the world, but without becoming tied to that as his identity, that would probably be the best way to go about it. You know all those aging legends and former champs who can’t walk away, even though they don’t need the money anymore? That’s usually an identity thing. They’ve been the fighter for so long, they don’t know who they’ll be when that’s over.

Either due to his faith or something else, McDonald seems to have a better fix on that problem. Then again, he’s also 22. The same way we reference his youth when we talk about his rise and his remarkable potential, we should also include it in discussions about his outlook. It might be easier to separate your job from your identity when you’re that young. Once you’re 35 and it’s the only vocation you’ve ever known, it could be a different story.